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Moneyspire Review 2017 – Free Budgeting Software

Review of: Moneyspire

Reviewed by: Ruth Lyons

Last modified: December 13, 2017

Rating:

7/10

Moneyspire is one of many personal finance software apps that help you organize your finances by aggregating your transactions into one location. It has the ability to budget, but synchronization with your Apple iOS device is cumbersome.

Cost

8/10

Customer Service

9/10

Ease of Use

7.5/10

Tools & Resources

7/10

Synchronization

7/10

Accessibility

Personal finance software has been around for decades. Advanced security and technology make it safe and easy to link your credit cards and debit cards, as well as your savings and checking accounts, so you can create and manage detailed budgets from your desktop and on the go.

What Is Moneyspire?

Moneyspire is a personal finance management software service with many features similar to Moneydance and Banktivity. The company name is a portmanteau of the words “money” and “inspire,” encapsulating their quest to “inspire people to manage their money in more effective and meaningful ways.”

With Moneyspire, you can either import your accounts through Direct Connect or manually enter each one. Once you’ve done that, you can:

Moneyspire provides an overview of your financial situation on one easy-to-read screen. It includes a free companion mobile app (available in iOS) that allows you to record transactions and check account balances when you’re out shopping.

Multiple Data Import/Export Choices — Transactions can be entered manually, downloaded automatically, and/or imported from a QFX/OFX, QIF, or CSV file. And your financial data can be exported to a QIF file or a spreadsheet and printed out to share with your accountant.

Apple iOS App Support — You have two ways to share your data with your mobile device. You can use a cloud server (Dropbox, which gives you 2 GB of storage free, is recommended by Moneyspire), or if you don’t want to put your data on the cloud, you can share it manually through your iTunes account.

Security — Your data is encrypted and stays on your computer. Moneyspire does not collect or store your financial information. Your data is accessible only to you.

Multiple Currency Support — All world currencies are supported on Moneyspire.

Free Customer Service — Users can access support via email and telephone.

Account Integration — Service is through Direct Connect, which connects directly to financial institutions rather than a third party.

Plans and Pricing

Moneyspire offers a free version of their software for personal use (available for Macintosh, Windows and Linux) that allows you to manage one account and set up to 9 reminders.

There is also a paid version with unlimited accounts available for a one-time fee of $54. For personal use, you only need to purchase one copy; the software can be used on all computers in your household. For business use, you much purchase one copy per computer.

Moneyspire. Step One: Download

After you purchase Moneyspire, it can be used indefinitely, and software updates are free. Technical and customer support is provided for the lifetime of the product. Moneyspire is refundable in the first 60 days.

Moneyspire never receives or has access to any of your financial information. It resides only on your hard drive or wherever you decide to save it. However, it you want to use the Mobile app, you must store your financial data on the cloud.

Cons

Cumbersome Setup — In order to use Moneyspire on your mobile device (iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch), you have to download the free companion app called “Moneyspire Go” and synch up your mobile account with your desktop account. And that process is not intuitive or easy.

No Android Support — iOS is the only mobile platform on which you can currently use Moneyspire.

Possible Bank Fees — My bank, Wells Fargo, charges a monthly fee to use Direct Connect in order to synch my checking account with my Moneyspire account. I realized this only after signing up and then had to call Wells Fargo to remove the service since you can’t disconnect it online.

Free App Is Limited — While there is a free version of the software, it gives you the ability to set up only one account. If you regularly use a credit card and checking account, for example, you need to upgrade to the paid version to keep track of both of those accounts with Moneyspire.

Summary

While it’s not intended to be a full-fledged accounting package like Quicken, Moneyspire seems to be a decent tool for budgeting, with some nice features not found in other personal finance software apps. For example, you can print checks and optional check vouchers to make manual bill paying easy. You can also easily split transactions into multiple categories for super-accurate budgeting.

I found the software setup to be somewhat cumbersome and a little frustrating. There are multiple steps, a few of which I took the option of skipping during initial setup, thinking I could easily go back and do them later, but that turned out not to be so easy after all.

While the video tutorial is well done and the help manuals detail everything in an organized way, navigating the software could be more intuitive and user-friendly.

The mobile setup was very involved, particularly if you didn’t already have a Dropbox account or cloud storage set up. You must do that before you can share data with your mobile device.

Finally, while there is a free version of the app, you can run into monthly fees from your financial institution when linking your account(s) to Moneyspire.

Moneyspire is an excellent app to manage your finances very easy to use and feature rich. Kudos to them they are really doing a good job improving the app

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Pat

10 months 21 days ago

I just downloaded Moneyspire, and so far, it appears they have been listening to the comments here. First off they now have a full featured 45-day trial. They are still not focused on investments, but for those of us that use Quicken for account tracking, reconciliation, and online bill pay, it works great!

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Roger Kinrade

1 year 13 days ago

They do not Inspire me. A week ago I sent an e-mail about their product which is still without reply. There are plenty more providers who are anxious for business – leave these amateur also rans alone

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John

1 year 3 months ago

Moneyspire has discontinued the free version and automatically overwrote my free version with a 14-day trial that will expire unless you purchase the paid version. Warning: If you download and install the software update that pops up, you will overwritten and out of luck.

I do NOT recommend this software, nor their deceptive business practices.

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Barry

1 year 4 months ago

Thank you for your review Ms. Lyons. There’s a large number of Quicken users who are concerned about what is happening as HIG Capital has gone completely quiet since April when they acquired Quicken from Intuit.

It sounds like there is not much in the way of capabilities in MoneySpire to manage investment accounts. It is primarily a cash management, budgeting and spending tracking tool. Is that so?

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